CartDEC 19–22 | Spend the Holidays w/ SFJAZZ
Dec 21, 2019
Miner Auditorium
PLEASE NOTE:
This page is an archive of a past production
Please visit our calendar for all upcoming SFJAZZ shows.
Original show description below.
It’s a short walk from the SFJAZZ Center to the War Memorial Opera House, which is where the evening-length ballet The Nutcracker made its North America premiere in the winter of 1944. An immediate sensation, the production unleashed an army of Nutcrackers large and small that march across the country come the holidays, turning Tchaikovsky’s spirited score into an enchanting soundtrack for the season. In 1960, at the urging of Billy Strayhorn, the Duke Ellington Orchestra recorded The Nutcracker Suite (Columbia), a brilliant jazz interpretation of Tchaikovsky’s music.
While largely forgotten today, the popular album marked a watershed in one of American music’s most consequent and productive partnerships, as Ellington gave Strayhorn equal billing for the first time on the album’s cover. For bassist, composer, and arranger Marcus Shelby, Ellington and Strayhorn’s Nutcracker Suite arrangements offer an ideal vehicle for his talent-laden jazz orchestra, an ensemble he modeled after Ellington’s.
Reveling in Tchaikovsky’s enduring melodies, Shelby’s band breathes new life into a singular cultural fusion that gracefully marries the great Russian composer with the orchestral language of two nonpareil jazz innovators.
A seemingly tireless and always in-demand bassist, composer, bandleader, and educator, Shelby has been blending music and activism for decades.
SF Weekly
A seemingly tireless and always in-demand bassist, composer, bandleader, and educator, Shelby has been blending music and activism for decades.
SF Weekly
Watch & Listen
Duke Ellington
Sugar Rum Cherry (Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy)
Marcus Shelby Orchestra
Moten Swing
Duke Ellington
Sugar Rum Cherry (Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy)
Marcus Shelby Orchestra
Moten Swing
DEC 19–22 | SPEND THE HOLIDAYS W/ SFJAZZ
DEC 19
Salsa Navidad
SPANISH HARLEM ORCHESTRADEC 20
DEC 22
Happy Joyous Hanukkah
THE KLEZMATICS